


The Reason for the Season (is All of You)

by blazingsnark



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, do you know how many times I spelled deceit wrong, it's christmas and they're all happy, mostly - Freeform, there's conflict but only for the sake of making a story out of a narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22141672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazingsnark/pseuds/blazingsnark
Summary: All the Sides were invited to the annual Christmas party, and there are only a few questions about the questionable ones.  And then there's banter and gifts!
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25
Collections: Sanders Sides Secret Santa 2019





	The Reason for the Season (is All of You)

It was Christmas Eve, and as much as Roman would have liked to say snow was falling outside and the soft sound of jingle bells floated through the air, he couldn’t. This was Florida. The temperature remained at a balmy seventy-or-so-degrees, and the only sound he could hear as he carefully placed his wrapped presents under the tree was not jingle bells but the soft smushing of slime in Remus’ hands.

At least, he hoped it was slime. He was going to believe it was slime if it was the last thing he did. Unfortunately, the sound became less and less like slime, and Roman sat up on his heels, glaring at his brother on the couch.

“You are  _ ruining _ the  _ mystique _ ,” he announced.

The soft green substance sticking to Remus’ hands certainly looked like slime. At least the squishing stopped as Remus focused on him, head cocked to one side, a crazed grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Oooh, mystique.” He giggled. “Isn’t that the X-Men character who’s just  _ constantly _ naked?”

That was an image Roman didn’t need, and he took a moment to try and shake it from his mind before he replied.

“No, the mystique! The romantic flair of the night,” he declared. “It’s Christmas Eve, secret little santas are placing presents under a gorgeous tree, dreams of sugarplums are dancing in everyone’s heads, and then there’s  _ you _ with your  _ sounds _ .”

Remus giggled again, but before he could answer, there was a high-pitched shriek from the kitchen. Both Roman and Remus jerked up. Something crashed. The kitchen light, then the hall light flipped on, revealing Patton in his cat onesie, breathing hard and staring up at the top of the fridge.

“Everything gucci over there, Pat?” Roman called. “Ugh, is it the dragon-witch again? I  _ told _ her-”

Someone who was very much not the dragon-witch hissed. Roman knew that hiss.

“Nah, it’s alright, kiddo.” Patton laughed jovially and a little uneasily. “Whew, you gave me a heart attack there, Virgil!”

“Hi, Virgil,” Remus called, waving with a slime-covered hand. Roman put his last present under the tree and scooted closer to see better. Virgil was a little black-and-purple mass somehow curled up on top of the refrigerator, looking equal parts embarrassed and annoyed.

“Hi,” he grumbled.

“Some of us are trying to  _ sleep _ ,” Logan snapped, coming down the stairs to a point where he could peer into the living room. He was still dressed in his day clothes. “What’s all the screaming? Oh, no, did Thomas send another ill-advised textual missive at one in the morning that Virgil is making him freak out about?”

“No,” snapped Virgil, trying to shrink back away from the light on top of the refrigerator. “Patton saw me and screamed.”

“His eyes glow,” said Patton with another nervous little laugh.

“Ah. Yes. The tapetum lucidum part of the eye, which causes good night vision in animals, will cause that effect. Virgil, do you have good night vision?”

“Why are you even up there?” Roman asked, completely ignoring Logan in favor of gesturing at Virgil’s awkward perch on the refrigerator. Virgil looked away.

“It’s comfortable.”

He didn’t look comfortable. Patton jumped in.

“Awww, it’s okay, let’s give him some space. Do you want me to turn the lights off, ki- Virgil?”

“I know why he’s up there,” Remus blurted out, clapping his slimy hands together. Roman grimaced at the squishy sound. “He was putting presents under the tree, and then Deceit came and was putting presents under the tree, and then Virgil went and hid on top of the fridge.”

Most of the Sides lapsed into silence to process this. Roman twisted around and stared at the tree. Beside Logan’s crisp folds, Patton’s gift bags with hand-decorated tissue paper, Virgil’s inconsistent messes of tape and wrapping paper, and what he could only assume were Remus’ gifts (all wrapped in giant origami dicks), there were five neatly stacked gifts wrapped in plain butcher paper. On closer inspection, they were all decorated in places with glittery green scale patterns - which, Roman had to admit, was pretty rad. Understated, but almost as impressive as his own gift wrapping this year, which was hiding the presents in the bodies of wrapping paper origami creatures.

Oh, by the teeth of the ravening sphinx, Remus had stolen his idea, hadn’t he? Roman grumbled a bit to himself. Not being the only Creativity anymore was  _ rough _ .

“I didn’t expect him to actually participate,” Logan stated after a few moments. “Deceit, that is.”

Patton rounded on him and put his hands on his hips. “Well, of course he’s going to participate!” he said, as if he hadn’t expected anything else. “We  _ invited _ him!”

“An invitation doesn’t mean he has to come.” Logan waved a hand vaguely in the air. “I thought he would- make up one of those silly excuses. Decline. Say he doesn’t want to spend time with us.”

“But an invitation means, if he comes, we welcome him with open arms,” prompted Patton, opening his arms. “And that’s what we’re going to do! Riiiight, Logan?”

“Besides, he doesn’t really have anything else to do tomorrow,” Remus piped up, squishing his slime-covered hands together to make fart noises.

For the second time, the Sides all stopped mid-gesture and turned to Remus. Remus kicked his feet against the couch and shrugged, still making fart sounds with the slime on his hands.

“Well, yeah,” Virgil muttered after a moment, still atop the fridge. “The Dark Sides… usually have their, our, own Christmas celebration, but since Remus and I are over here tomorrow…”

“And besides, we’re the only ones worth hanging out with.” Remus gave Virgil a loud, obvious wink. Virgil screwed up his face and visibly stopped himself from arguing with that.

“Today,” said Logan. In response to the confused silence, he pointed to the microwave clock reading 12:01. “Christmas is today. Remus and Virgil are over here for our celebration today, not tomorrow.”

That was a nitpick that deserved to be ignored, in Roman’s opinion. “Well,” he said. “We’re doing this because it’s fun, aren’t we? And to make sure Thomas has all our support tomorrow- today,” he corrected, seeing Logan open his mouth, “as he deals with everything Christmas brings! Like friends, and presents, and the promise of a new year-”

“And family who might not like him,” Virgil muttered, under his breath but growing louder. “And presents he might not want. And friends who might be upset if he gives them the wrong gift. Or if they give him the wrong gift and he visibly doesn’t like it. And the existential dread of realizing an entire decade is almost over.”

“O _ kay _ , we’re not  _ talking _ about that,” Roman said, louder, cutting Virgil off. “My  _ point _ is, Deceit wants to help Thomas, right? Just like the rest of us.”

Logan muttered under his breath. Patton and Virgil nodded. Remus chirped his agreement.

“Good,” announced Roman. “Now I’m off to bed. I might not be a queen, but I need my beauty sleep.”

He stood up, making sure to show off the sparkly princelike sash he’d decided should be across his pajama top, and sauntered over to the stairs.

“If you go to sleep right at this moment, you have six hours and fifty-seven minutes to sleep,” Logan said as Roman passed him on the stairs.

Roman made a face at him - not a mean one, just a teasing one - and sank down into his room.

* * *

Christmas Day dawned with less fanfare than Roman thought it should have. So he gave it some fanfare.

“Loud,” grumbled Virgil, almost hiding behind the Christmas tree as Roman paraded down the stairs, playing “Twelve Days of Christmas” on a bright silver trumpet he’d just made up for this occasion.

“Festive!” Patton was still in his cat onesie, drinking coffee with a candy cane in it from a mug that said  _ #1 Dad _ . Roman stopped playing to point at him.

“See? He gets it. And besides, I waited until everyone was up, so really, you all should be thanking me.”

“I believed thanks came after a favor or a gift.” Logan squinted. “Is this a new slang term? Can’t you make new words instead of repurposing perfectly good ones for slang?”

Roman jumped the last three steps, blowing a particularly shrill note on the trumpet as he landed. Everyone except Patton winced.

“Music,” he said dramatically, not that he ever did anything non-dramatically, “ _ is _ a gift.”

“You can’t wrap it!” Remus announced, popping up in front of the television. He was holding Deceit by the elbow and grinning his normal madman’s grin.

“Come on,” Roman complained. “You stole my dramatic entrance!”

“Can’t steal what wasn’t there.” Remus let go of Deceit’s elbow and pranced over to the tree, plopping himself down next to Virgil. Deceit surveyed the seating arrangements from under the brim of his hat. Roman sputtered.

“It was  _ so  _ there! Patton, you said it was festive. Back me up!”

Patton wasn’t paying attention. Patton was staring at Deceit.

“You okay there, buddy?” he asked gently. “C’mon, sit down. It’s Christmas.”

Deceit’s chin tilted. “No. I’ll stand,” he said. “It’s more comfortable.”

“But it’s Christmas.” Patton scooted over to make a space by him and patted it. Deceit didn’t move.

Virgil had clambered up onto the back of the couch at some point, without Roman noticing. He kept looking between Deceit and the fridge in the kitchen, mouth drawn tight.

“Oh,” said Logan.

Roman made the connection a few seconds after Logan. Virgil had been on top of the fridge last night because Deceit was at the Christmas tree. They’d had a conversation about Deceit last night after Patton found Virgil on the fridge. Deceit was… well, _ deceptively  _ good at hiding.

“Oh,” he said as well. Virgil pulled his hood up and looked anxious. Patton blinked.

“I thought ‘P’ came after ‘O’.”

“That’s not- no,” said Logan, pushing up his glasses. “Deceit, you’re welcome here. Please come join us.”

“Oh,” said Patton as well, finally getting it. Remus started dramatically biting his fingernails, made a face, and, equally as dramatically, started biting someone else’s fingernails. Roman wasn’t sure whose fingernails they were. He impulsively checked his own immaculate manicure to make sure they weren’t his.

“Okay, that wasn’t a good conversation for you to overhear,” Patton said, blithely addressing the obvious. “But you’re a Side, too, Deceit! We know what happens if a Side isn’t there.” He gestured to Virgil. “If you’re here, which you obviously are, you serve an important function in Thomas’ mind! It wouldn’t be Christmas without you here.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Logan agreed awkwardly. He cleared his throat. “Christmas is all about deceit, isn’t it?” He pointed to the wrapped presents under the tree. “It’s a secret what all of those things are right now. But when we unwrap them, and find out who they’re from, it’ll be… joyous. I’m told. Opening presents magnifies the… spirit, of the season It wouldn’t be possible without deception.”

“But the spirit of the season is really just family,” Patton butted in. He brought his peppermint coffee closer to his chest and sniffled a bit. “I love you  _ all _ . I just wanted to say that. You’ve all made this year so much better!”

Deceit sighed and looked toward Virgil and Remus, then made his way toward them, sitting by the couch between Remus and Virgil. Virgil put his hood back and came down from the couch back to the couch arm, still balancing precariously, but now closer to the tree.

“Okay,” Roman said, also sitting down - though, knowing the present he’d intended for Remus, he let Patton and Logan be next to Remus and sat on the far side of them both. “Let’s ope presents!”

“Wait,” said Deceit.

When they were all looking at him, he made a hand motion. All the names on the presents under the tree - both receiver and giver - vanished.

“My penmanship!” Patton squeaked.

“If deception is  _ really _ part of the season,” Deceit purred, “let’s make it official.” He was smirking. Of course he was smirking. Roman felt the corners of his mouth twitch at the thought of people trying to decipher which origami animal he’d made was theirs.

Deceit’s smile was infectious, it seemed. Patton beamed at him. Remus grinned, but Remus was always grinning. Logan’s mouth twitched, and Virgil ducked his head, hiding a smile behind his hand.

“O _ kay _ ,” Roman said again, and reached for a present at random - one of Patton’s gift bags which half a tinsel strand had fallen off the tree onto. “This has the most sparkles on it. It’s definitely mine.”

* * *

It took more confusion and shouting - and, yes, laughter - than usual, but everyone ended up with the gifts intended for them. Logan’s neatly packaged, equally sized gifts all contained the same thing - themed stationary sets with paper, a pen, a pencil, a pencil sharpener, and a shaped eraser. Roman figured out his pencil sharpener had one of those hologram faces and was too enamored with watching the unicorn change to a dragon as he tilted it back and forth to really pay attention to anyone else’s gifts, until-

“Are these My Chemical Romance lyrics?” Virgil asked in surprise, flipping through his paper pad. Logan coughed.

“You talk about them a lot.”

Virgil opened and closed his mouth, then gently settled the stationary pad back into the packaging. “Thanks, I guess,” he grumbled.

“These snakes are adorable,” Deceit said appreciatively, flipping through his own pad. “Now I have more paper to write disconcerting notes on and leave in Remus’ room.”

“That was you?” Remus asked, looking up from his black-and-green stationary set, where he’d been sharpening the eraser to a fine point.

“No,” said Deceit with a grin.

“Huh. Okay.” Remus attempted to write with the sharpened eraser, and for some reason, it came out as words. Roman decided not to look.

Patton’s gift bags, with their elaborately decorated tissue paper, held mugs and tree ornaments decorated with their Side symbols. The mugs were all filled with chocolate and affirming notes in Patton’s loopy, sweet handwriting. Roman grinned as he read his, and, looking up, he caught both Virgil and Deceit tucking their notes away into secret pockets. That made him grin harder. Patton pretended not to notice, but Roman was willing to bet he saw everything, from the way he sipped at his coffee and smiled.

“This is… surprisingly devoid of feelings,” Logan said, turning over the paper of his note to see if there was anything written on the back. Patton’s smile turned into a beam.

“Awww, well, you keep saying how you don’t do well with feelings, so I wanted to make sure you weren’t uncomfortable!”

Logan also tucked his note away into a pocket. Patton’s beam turned positively blinding.

“Is this chocolate?” Remus asked loudly, staring at the Hersheys and Godiva pieces filling his mug, and then followed up with, “Are you  _ sure _ ?”

Virgil’s messes of tape and paper were extraordinarily difficult to defeat, and halfway through, both Logan and Roman admitted defeat. Logan went to grab scissors. Roman pulled out his katana. Both methods worked, though the sword made Virgil visibly tense whenever the blade sheared “too close” to the gift inside. Remus used his teeth, which for some reason made Deceit visibly tense and scoot a bit away from him, where Virgil looked almost mildly amused.

The gifts inside were  _ not _ all the same, which caused some consternation and swapping before everyone was sure they had the correct item. Logan landed with a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, with slang definitions of terms and slang words themselves (like “fam,” “selfie,” and Roman’s personal favorite just for the sarcastic definition, “squad”) all added. Logan went very silent and intent reading for a few seconds, then whipped out index cards, borrowed the pen he’d given Patton, and started writing out new flash cards. Patton didn’t care. Patton was busy tearing up over his gift of a complete, bound collection of all the emo poetry Thomas had ever written in middle and high school.

Deceit carefully attempted to untape his gift from Virgil for five solid minutes before giving up and giving it to Roman, who had it unwrapped in three seconds flat. Then Roman realized this gift was clearly his and tossed the one he’d had before to Deceit. A compendium of curse words in all the different romantic languages, with a bright red leather cover and silver edging? He already knew Spanish, but now he could talk down to all Thomas’ enemies in  _ all _ the languages of love! He started practicing immediately as Deceit turned over the gift apparently intended for him in gloved hands.

“A white hat?”

“Just in case,” Virgil said, and he and Deceit shared a look that Roman didn’t quite understand. Then Remus shrieked.

“Chocolate!”

“Are you  _ sure  _ it’s chocolate?” Virgil shot back without breaking eye contact with Deceit. His tone was much darker than Remus’ had been, and Remus cackled.

Remus’ creatively origami-d gifts were very easy to open, and even easier to identify once there was enough wrapping paper off them to get a glimpse at the color scheme. Everyone now had a personal desk calendar of mildly unsettling thoughts, such as, “Lemon cookies brushed with sand instead of sugar,” and “Plushies with insect legs instead of fake fur”. Despite the words, Roman had to admit the pages were impeccably decorated. He was a little jealous, then realized Remus had been the first person to make him jealous of a design choice in years, and the jealousy turned to less-grudging admiration of his desk calendar. He’d have to outdo this next year.

The idea of there being a “next year” with all six of them - and maybe even more, by that time - was a happy, thrilling one, he realized, and grinned. The grin was taken as enjoyment of the gift by Remus.

“I knew you’d like it!” he crowed. Logan flipped to a random day on his calendar.

“Bite into a votive candle like an apple,” he read aloud, and looked up at Remus with a furrowed brow. “I mean- why?”

Roman had already admired Deceit’s stylistic choices on his gifts, and actually set aside a section of the butcher paper with scales in order to study how it was done later. And then he - like everyone else - was promptly confused by the selection of unlabeled gifts, and Deceit had to actually step in and have a hand in the swapping to make sure everyone got what he had intended for them.

“But why philosophy books?” Patton complained, squinting at his copy of Emmanuel Kant’s “most important” philosophies. Deceit shrugged.

“It’s no fun to copy any of you when I can’t cite my sources in an argument without being immediately found out.”

“You,” Logan said, pointing at Deceit with determination. “I like you.” Then he checked his new dictionary. “Did I do that right?”

Roman clapped for him, only a little sarcastically.

Roman had insisted his presents be opened last, and he thoroughly enjoyed watching everyone debate over which origami animal was supposed to be theirs. Oh, sure, Deceit got his snake pretty quickly, but everyone else had quite a time of it before the raven ended up with Logan, the rabbit with Patton, the dragon with Remus, and the fox with Virgil.

Gifts were torn into. Patton squealed. Deceit went silent and wide-eyed. Remus also squealed, just worse than Patton. Logan hummed appreciatively. Virgil asked, “Did you  _ make _ all of these?”

“Yep!” Roman said proudly, watching the hand-knitted, butt-ugly sweaters be unfolded from their origami animal-shaped wrappings. “YouTube can teach you everything.”

“Don’t tell Thomas,” Deceit muttered sarcastically, eyeing his loud yellow sweater with equal parts horror and awe. It sparkled. Roman had woven green tinsel into the yarn in places. He thought it looked fantastic in the multicolored Christmas tree lights.

“It doesn’t have a hood,” Virgil muttered discontentedly. If that was the only thing he could find to complain about the dark purple-and-black gradient sweater, especially with the absolutely obnoxiously bad blood-red drippy designs from the shoulders and collar, Roman was going to count that as a win.

“Oh!” Remus shrieked. Roman glanced over to see he’d found the pair of knitting needles bundled in with his sweater. He grimaced and hoped it could be taken as a grin.

“It’s your turn next year,” he said. “You’re Creativity, too, I guess.”

Remus beamed at him. Roman felt his grimace melt into an actual smile.

“Hey,” Patton said, in that tone of voice they all knew way too well. He lifted his untouched rabbit origami up to his chest. “I always told you kids, eating your vegetables puts  _ hare _ on your chest!”

Groans all around. Roman dramatically rolled onto the floor and cried, “We were  _ so _ close to a Christmas without dad jokes!”

“Is it really Christmas without dad jokes? This is… adequate,” Logan added as he pressed his sweater up to his body, measuring the fit. “Though… obnoxious.” Roman had found the softest, most obnoxiously bright blue yarn he could, also woven tinsel into the sleeves, and knitted a tie design on the front. The tie, unfortunately for Logan, was bright red plaid.

“It’s not Christmas without pancakes,” Patton declared, finally ripping into his gift and taking out the sweater. “I’ll go start them after- Awww, Roman, I love it! But aren’t the sleeves a bit too long?” he added, examining the sleeves of the gray, blue, and pink plaid sweater, which were indeed each about half a foot longer than they needed to be.

“So you can tie it around your neck like your cardigan,” Roman explained. Patton dropped the sweater to give him a giant hug.

“Awwww, that’s so sweet of you to think about! I love it.”

Remus once again shrieked with glee. The shriek was accompanied and overlain by the shriek of an air horn. Logan yelped. Virgil fell off his precarious perch on the couch into Deceit’s startled lap. Patton squeezed Roman so tightly he could barely breathe.

Remus giggled and wriggled into his sweater. The air horn was, by Roman’s design, tucked into a pouch in the garish lime-green sweater so it nestled by Remus’ side.

And this had been why he hadn’t sat by Remus. He wriggled in Patton’s grip.

“Hey-”

“Oop, sorry.” Patton released Roman and let him take a deeper, more dramatic breath than was necessarily called for. “Hey, Remus, kiddo, how about we-”

The air horn shrieked again. Virgil fell back into Deceit’s lap. Logan yelped again. Patton jumped, and Deceit snickered.

“Okay,” Patton said sternly once this blast was done. “Okay. Let’s limit that to once a day so it doesn’t lose its shock value and we don’t lose our ears, okay?”

“Lose our ears?” Remus reached up to his ears. Patton pointed at him.

“No. Leave your ears on your head.”

Remus looked only mildly disappointed. “Once a day.”

“Yes.”

“Once  _ every _ day.”

Roman was starting to realize what terror he’d unleashed on the house by giving Remus an air horn.

It was okay, he decided, as everyone turned back to their gifts and started exploring them more thoroughly, and as Patton got up to make pancakes, and as Deceit - surprisingly - went to help him in the kitchen. Remus would probably lose interest after a week or so. And besides, there would be other Christmases with this bunch.

Maybe with more people, really.

Thomas was on the way to see his friends, singing Christmas carols in the car, and Roman couldn’t help the grin on his face as he turned back to all the gifts his family had given him. Nor could he stop himself from singing the Christmas carol playing on Thomas’ radio under his breath.

“Don we now our gay apparel…”

“No ruining your breakfast with chocolate!” yelled Patton from the kitchen, and Virgil stopped, guiltily, with an unwrapped Hershey’s kiss halfway to his mouth.

Roman, of course, didn’t listen.

**Author's Note:**

> The white hat - a reference to "white hat hackers," people who use questionable skills for good. Virgil is essentially telling Deceit he'll be welcomed to the Light Sides when/if he wants.


End file.
